Infrequently Asked Questions
Are you familiar with the internet-age term FAQ? It stands for Frequently Asked Questions, and it's used by a person who has to deal with the same questions about something over and over again. The person in question just answers the question in a FAQ-type format and whoever wants to know the answer to the question can just look up the answer there and not ask the person directly. I'm not going to do this, because I have no Frequently Asked Questions. I am, however, going to twist the concept to my own ends in a groundbreaking post I like to call Infrequently Asked Questions (IAQ). I'm so edgy.
Epth Nation Blog IAQ v1.0
1) First things first: Which Bush Twin do you prefer: Jenna or Barbara?
A: Well, considering Jenna looks like a 20-year-old girl with Dubya's face grafted onto her head, I'll take Barbara.
2) How would one pronounce IAQ?
A: I must end in "Ack", just like FAQ. The main question is if the "IA" is a dipthong or not. I mean, I'm a dipthong, yes, but is the "IA"? No. It is pronounce like "Biaq", without the "B". Phonetically, it would have to be "EE-ack", with the emphasis on the first syllable. To put it on the last syllable would sound too much like "yak".
3) Do you have a zit on your right cheek today that obscures your vision when you look down?
A: Sadly, yes. How did you know?
4) So, I've noticed that a lot of your posts happen during the day, when you're supposed to be at "work". Do you post personal stuff at "work", or is "work" just a story you made up so that your church would stop asking you to do stuff?
A: You've really backed me into a corner there. My lawyer just whispered to me that I shouldn't answer this one, but I will anyway with the caveat that my answer may or may not be true. I do post at work, during "down time". Actually, I compose as I'm doing other stuff, so it always looks like I'm working. Right now, there are a bunch of papers in front of me that I am studying in an effort to head off and solve problems. I'm just pausing to type every once in a while. This is the method I use to write a lot of these posts, which is probably why they're so disjointed. I will say that the vast majority of my time at work is spent actually working, unlike most people in most companies. Productivity is the Great American Myth.
5) What do you mean by "productivity is the Great American Myth"
A: As Companies switched to the impersonal and evil "Human Resources" approach to labor, which assigns a certain cost to a human and is constantly in the process of determining whether or not that human's cost to the company is still justified, the "humans" struck back in the only way they could: looking busy while doing as little work as possible. People do all sorts of things to keep their jobs and look like model employees, while at the same time turning work into their own personal playground. Some people, (such as most good salespeople, dedicated teachers, or immigrants in sweatshops), do not do this for monetary or moral reasons. Everyone else does.
To put this another way, productivity as an economic number may be up due to GNP growth and low labor costs, but employees in America aren't really any more productive than they have been in the past. Only when employers start to partner with their employees and give them job security will people start to be really productive again.
(disclaimer: This blogger is not an economist, and this answer is therefore probably wrong.)
6) What interesting or not-so-interesting fact did you learn today?
A: I'm kinda glad you asked...I learned that mice (like hamsters) will cannibalistically eat their mice friends if they happen to be hungry and their mice friends happen to be dead. This brings to mind a situation an old roommate of mine had: In many ways it was the classic tale of not realizing one has a male and a female hamster in the same cage. These two hamsters (Thor and Loki, I think...or was it Xena? Xena would make more sense. Then again, if we didn't realize it was a female, Loki would make more sense. Glenn, if you're out there and can remember the hazy East Side days, help me out) did naughty hamster things to each other, and all of a sudden there were like 15 hamsters in the cage. Within a year, that number was down to one, and my roommate didn't have to sell even one of them. Why? Because hamsters, if left to their own devices, will kill each other, because they are nature's little a__holes. Then they will eat the heads off the dead loser hamsters, because they are cannibalistic. It sucks to be a hamster.
7) If all three of your bosses are gone at work, will you even bother to change your shoes?
A: Let's see...(looking at my feet)...clearly, no. I could use this answer to rant about how stupid it is for me to not be able to wear what shoes I want in this service department job, but there would be no point. It would also bust open the can of worms I really don't want to deal with in an IAQ answer: The arbitrary authoritarian "professional" dress code in american business.
8) What's the time?
A: Time for lunch, holmes.
Thus ends the IAQ.
Epth Nation Blog IAQ v1.0
1) First things first: Which Bush Twin do you prefer: Jenna or Barbara?
A: Well, considering Jenna looks like a 20-year-old girl with Dubya's face grafted onto her head, I'll take Barbara.
2) How would one pronounce IAQ?
A: I must end in "Ack", just like FAQ. The main question is if the "IA" is a dipthong or not. I mean, I'm a dipthong, yes, but is the "IA"? No. It is pronounce like "Biaq", without the "B". Phonetically, it would have to be "EE-ack", with the emphasis on the first syllable. To put it on the last syllable would sound too much like "yak".
3) Do you have a zit on your right cheek today that obscures your vision when you look down?
A: Sadly, yes. How did you know?
4) So, I've noticed that a lot of your posts happen during the day, when you're supposed to be at "work". Do you post personal stuff at "work", or is "work" just a story you made up so that your church would stop asking you to do stuff?
A: You've really backed me into a corner there. My lawyer just whispered to me that I shouldn't answer this one, but I will anyway with the caveat that my answer may or may not be true. I do post at work, during "down time". Actually, I compose as I'm doing other stuff, so it always looks like I'm working. Right now, there are a bunch of papers in front of me that I am studying in an effort to head off and solve problems. I'm just pausing to type every once in a while. This is the method I use to write a lot of these posts, which is probably why they're so disjointed. I will say that the vast majority of my time at work is spent actually working, unlike most people in most companies. Productivity is the Great American Myth.
5) What do you mean by "productivity is the Great American Myth"
A: As Companies switched to the impersonal and evil "Human Resources" approach to labor, which assigns a certain cost to a human and is constantly in the process of determining whether or not that human's cost to the company is still justified, the "humans" struck back in the only way they could: looking busy while doing as little work as possible. People do all sorts of things to keep their jobs and look like model employees, while at the same time turning work into their own personal playground. Some people, (such as most good salespeople, dedicated teachers, or immigrants in sweatshops), do not do this for monetary or moral reasons. Everyone else does.
To put this another way, productivity as an economic number may be up due to GNP growth and low labor costs, but employees in America aren't really any more productive than they have been in the past. Only when employers start to partner with their employees and give them job security will people start to be really productive again.
(disclaimer: This blogger is not an economist, and this answer is therefore probably wrong.)
6) What interesting or not-so-interesting fact did you learn today?
A: I'm kinda glad you asked...I learned that mice (like hamsters) will cannibalistically eat their mice friends if they happen to be hungry and their mice friends happen to be dead. This brings to mind a situation an old roommate of mine had: In many ways it was the classic tale of not realizing one has a male and a female hamster in the same cage. These two hamsters (Thor and Loki, I think...or was it Xena? Xena would make more sense. Then again, if we didn't realize it was a female, Loki would make more sense. Glenn, if you're out there and can remember the hazy East Side days, help me out) did naughty hamster things to each other, and all of a sudden there were like 15 hamsters in the cage. Within a year, that number was down to one, and my roommate didn't have to sell even one of them. Why? Because hamsters, if left to their own devices, will kill each other, because they are nature's little a__holes. Then they will eat the heads off the dead loser hamsters, because they are cannibalistic. It sucks to be a hamster.
7) If all three of your bosses are gone at work, will you even bother to change your shoes?
A: Let's see...(looking at my feet)...clearly, no. I could use this answer to rant about how stupid it is for me to not be able to wear what shoes I want in this service department job, but there would be no point. It would also bust open the can of worms I really don't want to deal with in an IAQ answer: The arbitrary authoritarian "professional" dress code in american business.
8) What's the time?
A: Time for lunch, holmes.
Thus ends the IAQ.
posted by Mike Pape @ 8:32 AM
4 Comments:
At 1:51 PM,
NakedHobo said…
The hamsters in question were Loki and Xena. Their children were murderers and cannibals. On Halloween night, how fitting, the one of the two remaining females ate the head off her sister and one of the remaining males trapped his brother in a smaller tube and caused him to die of dehydration. We were in St, Louis so the poor guy had no water for four or five days. I left water, plenty of it, but his brother blocked access to it.
At 1:51 PM,
NakedHobo said…
The hamsters in question were Loki and Xena. Their children were murderers and cannibals. On Halloween night, how fitting, the one of the two remaining females ate the head off her sister and one of the remaining males trapped his brother in a smaller tube and caused him to die of dehydration. We were in St, Louis so the poor guy had no water for four or five days. I left water, plenty of it, but his brother blocked access to it.
At 1:53 PM,
NakedHobo said…
so important I apparently had to post it twice
At 1:54 PM,
NakedHobo said…
The hamsters in question were Loki and Xena. Their children were murderers and cannibals. On Halloween night, how fitting, the one of the two remaining females ate the head off her sister and one of the remaining males trapped his brother in a smaller tube and caused him to die of dehydration. We were in St, Louis so the poor guy had no water for four or five days. I left water, plenty of it, but his brother blocked access to it.
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